Washing Machine
2020 · 5m · Czechia
Directed by Alexandra Májová
Genres: dark comedy, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic
A man and a washing machine become intimately connected — until a visit from the plumber triggers a crisis in their relationship.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A man in love with his washing machine until the plumber shows up—this is the kind of premise that makes people uncomfortable, which means it's doing something right. Majority taste would sand this down to quirky-indie pablum, but Májová leans into the genuinely unsettling logic of it.
The surrealist domestic scenario recalls a lineage from Buñuel through contemporary Eastern European absurdism, though the execution feels slightly diffuse—the formal rigor of the absurdist gesture doesn't quite crystallize into the kind of composed visual argument that would anchor it.
The decision to play the man's attachment to the machine with complete sincerity, without winking at the audience, is what makes the five minutes land; it's a one-choice film that trusts the viewer to sit in discomfort rather than deflect with irony.